Ben Brik, still jailed in Tunisia: 'Chains will certainly break!'

“When people want to live, destiny must surely respond. Darknesss will disappear, chains will certainly break!”

Journalist Taoufik
Ben Brik, 49, spurred admiration among his relatives and lawyers at a Tunis appeals court on Saturday when he chanted these two
verses by Abou El Kacem Chebbi, Tunisia's
most well-known poet. This unexpected recitation of Chebbi's verses, which
galvanized resistance to French occupation and autocratic rule after the
country's independence in 1956, followed the persecuted journalist’s first remarks
in court about his ordeal since his incarceration on
October 29. It was the first time he had been allowed to speak at his own
hearing.

“Ben Brik is not in good
health. But his morale during the hearing was great, and he brilliantly shed
light on the political dimension of the case filed against him and how the
police fabricated it solely because of his criticism of President Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali,” his lawyer, Radhia Naraoui, told CPJ. “He also reminded the
court that it was not the first time a politically motivated case had been
imposed on him.”

Many believe that
without the overwhelming wave of protests against Ben Brik's imprisonment in
different parts of the world, particularly in France where he is a well-known contributor
to French newspapers, he would not have been allowed to speak his mind. He
would not have been allowed to tell the appeals court how police forced him to
take off his clothes amid insults and reminders of the heavy price that will be
paid when a journalist criticizes the country's ruler. Ben Ali's reelection for
a fifth term in October with nearly 90 percent of the votes led to a ruthless
war on critical journalists, blogger, human rights defenders, and students.

Last week, the European
Parliament held an unprecedented public debate in Strasbourg on the human
rights situation in Tunisia, prompted mainly by rising attacks on press freedom—particularly
the imprisonment of Ben Brik and Zouhair Makhlouf, a contributor to
news Web site AssabilOnline and the
opposition weekly Al-Mawkif. The
latter was sentenced in October to three months in prison for “harming and disturbing others through the public
communication network." But paradoxically, he remains in prison
even though his jail term expired on January 18.

Earlier this month, CPJ
condemned court decisions opposing Makhlouf's release and sentencing another
journalist, Fahem
Boukadous of the satellite television Al-Hiwar Al-Tunisi, to a four-year
jail term for covering labor protests against corruption and unemployment in
the south of the country in 2008.

Nasraoui, one ofnearly 50lawyers who volunteered to defend Ben Brik and repeatedly denounced the
six-month jail sentence handed to him on November 26—allegedly for assault on a
woman—said she was not surprised the judge refused to free the critical journalist,
despite his frail health. The court postponed its ruling until January 30.

"I didn't
understand why each time Ben Brik mentioned Ben Ali's name, the judge would
start shaking and interrupt him,” Nasraoui asked rhetorically. “Isn't he
representing the judiciary, which is supposed to be independent from the executive
branch?" Nasraoui, who worked as a journalist before becoming a human rights
lawyer more than three decades ago, wondered why she could visit prisoners of
all kinds—including those sentenced to death for armed rebellion in the
southern city of Gafsa
in 1980 under former President Habib Bourguiba—yet be prevented from visiting
Ben Brik, "whose only weapon is his pen."

Other lawyers and
relatives of Ben Brik have often been prevented by prison guards from seeing
him, even though they had permits from judicial authorities. His wife, Azza
Zarrad, and brothers and sisters recently went on hunger strike to protest
police and prison guard harassment.

Just before his
detention, Ben Brik posted a fictitious interview in which he poked fun at Ben
Ali on the Web site of the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur.
That along with other critical interviews prompted the fabrication of the case
against him and led to his punishment, he firmly believes. CPJ International
Press Freedom Award Winner Naziha
Rejiba and Nasraoui were among the leading civil society advocates
interviewed by Ben Brik.

When Ben Brik asked
Nasraoui what was the most unforgivable thing Ben Ali had done since he came
to power in a bloodless coup in 1987, Nasraoui, who heads the banned
Association Against Torture in Tunisia, told him that it was "the use of
torture as a tool to rule Tunisia" that angered her the most.

Nasraoui and other brave
human rights lawyers, like Mohamed Abbou, Abderraouf Ayadi, and Ayachi Hammami,
also involved in defending Ben Brik, say that the hostility to critical
journalists and lawyers and the vengeful determination to settle scores with
them are unheard of in the country's recent history. None has the slightest
idea about what will happen at Ben Brik's next hearing or Makhlouf's on
February 3.

Kamel Labidi is a freelance journalist and former CPJ representative and consultant for the Middle East and North Africa region. Labidi returned from exile to Tunisia in 2011 to head the National Commission to Reform Information and Communication. He resigned in 2012 to protest the lack of political will of the Islamist-led government to implement the commission’s recommendations.